At the turn of the century, writers and illustrators typically
portrayed New York as a place of extremes. No contrasts were more
obvious than those between the city's rich and poor. During the last
quarter of the nineteenth century the growth of banks, financial firms,
and corporate headquarters in Manhattan had spawned a new
generation of millionaires, many of whom built mansions on upper Fifth
Avenue across from Central Park. At the same time, immigration had swelled the ranks of the
city's poor to unprecedented numbers, and the Lower East Side became notorious for poverty,
filth, and overcrowding. The Ashcan artists' years in New York coincided with the Progressive
Era, a time when reformers and journalists brought issues of wealth and poverty to the
forefront of public attention, and their artwork reflected these concerns. In 1906 Everett
Shinn made a number of pastels for New York by Night, an unfinished book project in which
he planned to pair drawings of New York's poor with the evening pastimes of the well-to-do.
Sloan, Bellows, and Henri contributed drawings to the radical magazine The Masses; Henri
frequented soirees at anarchist Emma Goldman's house; and Sloan became a candidate for
office on the Socialist Party ticket. Despite their political affiliations, the Ashcan artists
avoided propagandizing in their work. Sloan even resigned as art editor of The Masses to
protest the overly politicized captions that were being added to drawings featured in the
magazine.
Vivo Video (:26)
This shows a view looking south from Madison Square, across the intersection of Broadway, Fifth Avenue, and Twenty-third Street, to the famous Fuller (or "Flatiron") Building. Twenty-one stories high, it is considered the first tall building erected north of city hall. It 's
completion in 1902 marked the beginning of New York City's first skyscraper
era.